Alternative Energies

We will discuss where four main types of alternatives to oil and what are being done to bring these technologies into our everyday lives.

Angie Beale, Natalie Neff, Brett Busold & William Graves

Group Paper, Humn 432 Devry University, Fall Semester SessionB Febuary17 ,2011

Alternative Energies

Contents

Addicts 3

Methanol 4

Ethanol 4

15% 6

Taking a Personal Stand 7

Taking Action 8

Fuel Cell’s 8

Geothermal Energy 12

Solar Power 19

Bibliography 27

Addicts

Presidents and many other influential people of our time have said that The United States is addicted to Oil. This substance that is nothing more than liquefied plant and animal material has been one of the greatest finds of our time. It has revolutionized our entire existence and made our once huge world seem so much smaller. Yet it is now running out and becoming increasingly more costly. Many of the things we own and use have some sort of oil/petroleum by product in them. It is going to take a revolution in finding other sources of energy to break this addiction that we are said to have. Though we may be called “addicts” to oil, as Former President George W Bush said in February of 2006, we really have no other way of fueling our cars, packaging our products. etc. The latest estimates published by the Sierra Club show that cars and light trucks use 8.6 million barrels of oil per day, big trucks and buses use 2.5 million barrels a day, air travel uses 1.4 million, heating uses 6.5 million and even electricity, military, plastic and other uses average around 3.9 million barrels just in one day (Rauber, 2008). We hear of other sources of energy, other ways of getting to where we need to go, yet our consumption of oil grows and vehicles are still made needing oil and gasoline. Portions of this paper will raise the question of why? If we know the end is near for oil on Earth then why are we not changing our...